The linguistic features of pride in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus

Abstract EN

This paper attempts to examine Christopher Marlowe’s Dr.

Faustus (1588/92?) from a linguistic perspective.

It offers an analysis of the play on the syntactic, lexical and pragmatic levels respectively to find out the extent to which certain formal aspects of language can contribute to a wider understanding of Marlowe’s message about “pride” with its two faces of presumption and despair.

It thus supports the notion of complementarity of critical and formal investigation of literary products.